Health Benefits of Skipping Meals

They say you should eat on time and never skip meals, especially breakfast, because it's the most important meal. So eat like a lion at breakfast, they urge. I used to believe this so much that I always ate hearty breakfasts since college (I skipped them in high school). For a long while it was okay until I started gaining weight.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash.

This was at age 30 plus. Age 29 years below, everything was still okay. My body barely gained any added weight and my tummy size was steady at 28 inches, my chest at 34 inches. Later, I learned it was due to a young metabolism. But 30 years and up, it was a different story altogether. I was gradually gaining weight. I learned this was due to an aging (and slowing) metabolism. But health experts I read then insisted that breakfast was vital and it helped you lose weight. They added that I shouldn't skip any meal. So I kept eating 3 times a day with full breakfasts.

Later, and after several more "health and fitness tips" like the above  (and after going vegetarian) my tummy bulged like crazy. Yup, being vegetarian gave me a pot belly. The carbs and rice and fruits I ate to replace my meat intake gave me an insulin-resistance effect that stored body fat intact especially in my belly.

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Eating Wisdom

After more researches on health and fitness, I discovered something that, I believe, gave me real eating wisdom. Simply put, it's "Eat less." I mean, eat all you want (I believe in no-diet slim), but eat less often. I started with eating 2 times a day, then once a day, skipping breakfast each time. I was quite uneasy at first with the thought of breaking my breakfast tradition or routine, but later I got myself to trashing it. Why?

First, traditional breakfast in Manila was carb-rich. Rice, bread (pandesal or tasty bread), oatmeal, kakanin, pancakes and hotdog and one fried egg (we were told to limit ourselves with our egg consumption because too much was bad). Even the Milo or coffee had powdered milk and sugar--and powdered milk is almost half sugar. It was a high-carb meal. And I thought it made me healthier, stronger and fitter. Later, I learned from real expert and fitness experts (who knew holistic and natural health) how high carbs are a big no-no.

Second, I believe in the caveman eating concept. Primitive men didn't have the luxury of keeping raw food in the freezer for cooking the next several days or keeping leftover food in the fridge to preserve it couple of days. They didn't have groceries or markets from which they bought food anytime or had cooked food delivered to their homes. 

They had to go out into the wilds to hunt. And that took a long time and a lot of physical effort--almost the whole morning or day, I'd imagine. They didn't just go to the meat shop to buy a kilo of meat. They stalked wild animals, climbed trees and hills, probably swam in the river, ran after their preys, and swung on shrubs. Not to mention how they butchered their catch and cooked them on open fire. 

So my guess is, they ate once a day, because sourcing and cooking food for a meal involved great tasks. And that's how God designed it originally.

Original Plan

Eating wisdom has a lot to do with God's design for man. Originally, when God provided for man, HE didn't provide fridge, freezers, grocery stores or markets. He didn't provide gas ranges, ovens or cooking utensils. HE just provided plants and animals for food. Period. I can imagine how God intended to omit the conveniences of a kitchen and gastronomic equipment so that man would be preoccupied with hunting, gathering, preparing and cooking. And nothing to keep or preserve man's leftover food, like a fridge. Why? So man would eat only one or two meals a day, and low-carb at that.

No provisions for bread, pastries, cereals, or refined sugar. What carbs man had were nature-sourced, not man-made. No softdrinks, soda, canned or powder "fruit" juices, energy drinks rich in sugar and caffeine, although I can imagine early man enjoying some kind of brewed coffee back then (not instant). 😆

Cave men ate one meal a day (most probably skipped breakfast, too) but they didn't suffer from ulcer. Why? Because acid from synthetic foods and drinks cause ulcers, not skipping breakfast. If you miss breakfast and then eat a lot of junk food and acidic drinks at lunchtime--and you eat fast and stressed out without enjoying your food leisurely--then you're apt to get stomach ulcer.

So I Kip Meals

So the idea is, I skip meals to eat just once or one and half meals a day. I stop eating at 6pm and eat the next day at 12 noon. At lunch time, I eat like a lion. Gently and slowly but I eat all I need to, enjoying every bite. And I take time chewing my food well. No strict dieting. And of course, no sugar and I limit myself to low carbs. 

Sometimes, I eat a banana at 10am before taking a mug of coffee (I mix my own blend of bulletproof coffee). Often, I eat some healthy snacks at 4 or 5 pm. But no more food at 6pm. So I skipped breakfast and dinner. 

What Effect Did It have on Me?

1. I lost weight, from 169 pounds down to 155.
2. I lost belly fat.
3. I became lean and muscular.
4. I'm able to perform better athletically (Filipino martial arts).
5. I don't get hungry easily.
6. I lost craving for carbs and sweets.
7. I experienced detox symptoms.

According to experts, autophagy is the natural process your body gets rid or "eats" fats and toxins in the body when you fast, eliminating all poisons and chemicals that have long been stored in body fats, cleansing your body in the process. When you starve the body of carbs and sugar, the body is left with no option but to "feed" on the body fats that stick and surround organs like the liver, kidneys, stomach (belly fat), and blood vessels, consuming toxins that lodge in the fats and throws them out your body as waste products (sweat, urine and poop). 

Eating less gives your body ample time to work on the tons of backlogs it has to digest, burn and process. The backlog is due to frequent eating, like three or five times a day, so that your body fails to process them all "on time" and automatically stores aside as body fats. Whatever is not burned for now is stored as fat and that accumulates. 

Problem is, when your body burns something, it doesn't start with the stored fat. It always starts with the carbs you just ate. So, if you're high on carbs, your body will never get to burn your stored body fats. But if you starve it of carbs and sugars, you may feel starved, but it would just be for a time because soon your body turns to stored body fats for fuel--along with all the toxins inside those fats. You may even heal. Whatever it is that ails you may possibly also disappear. Then gradually you'd feel okay. 

Disclaimer

But, before you try anything mentioned here, consult your medical doctor first. 😉

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